The fencing master, p.5
THE FENCING MASTER, page 5
“What now, Sir,” I returned; “have the Russians taken to drinking beer then, or have they planted vineyards, maybe, in Kamtchatka?”
“Bagasse! if that was all, we might compete with them; it’s the Russian noblemen, for ever buying, but never paying.”
“Thank you, Sir, for your advice; but I am quite sure I shall not become a bankrupt at this business. I don’t deal in wine.”
“At any rate, Sir,” observed an individual in a strongly marked Lyons accent, and wearing an overcoat with a fur collar, though it was the height of summer, “at any rate, I recommend you, if you are a wool and fur merchant, to keep the pick of your goods for yourself, as you do not appear to have a strong constitution, and delicate chests in this country soon come to grief. We buried fifteen Frenchmen last winter. That ought to be warning sufficient.”
“I will take precautions, Sir, and as I intend to supply myself from your establishment I hope you will deal with me as a fellow countryman.”
“Why, certainly, Sir, with the greatest pleasure. I come from Lyons, the second city in France, and we are noted for our honesty, and since you are not a dealer in wool or furs....”
“Don’t you see that our dear fellow countryman does not want to tell us who he is?” struck in casually a gentleman, whose hair fresh from the curling tongs reeked with the abominable smell of jasmine pomade. For the last quarter of an hour he had been trying unsuccessfully to sever the wing from a chicken, while each of us awaited our share.
“Don’t you see,” he repeated, with emphasis on every word, “don’t you see he does not want to tell us who he is?”
“If I were lucky enough to possess manners like yours, Sir, or to emit such a delightful perfume, people would not have much trouble in identifying me.”
“What does that mean?” cried the young man with the curls, “what does that mean?”
“It means that you are a barber.”
“Do you wish to insult me, Sir?”
“It seems that you are insulted when you are told who you are.”
The curly-headed youth drew a card from his pocket and shouted,” Here is my address.”
“Sir,” said I, “go on with your carving.”
“So you refuse to give me satisfaction?”
“You wanted to know my profession? well, my profession prevents me from fighting.”
“You are a coward then?”
“No, Sir, I am a fencing master.”
“Ah!” cried the youth with the curls, immediately growing calm.
There was a moment’s silence, while my cross-questioner tried with even less success than before to tear a wing from the chicken; at last weary of the struggle he passed it on to a neighbour.
“So you are a fencing master,” said my neighbour from Bordeaux after a short pause; “a nice profession, Sir; I took a turn at it myself sometimes, when I was young and hot-headed.”
“It is a branch of industry not much cultivated here, and one which cannot fail to succeed, especially under the direction of a man such as you,” said the professor.
“Oh! yes, doubtless,” interrupted the furrier, “but I advise you to wear flannel waistcoats when giving your lessons, and to get a fur mantle in which to wrap yourself when the display is finished.”
“My word, my dear compatriot,” said the young man with the curls, helping himself to a portion of the chicken, which his neighbour had carved for him, and once more full of self assurance, “My word, my dear compatriot, for you are a Parisian, I think you said?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“So am I. You are embarked on an excellent speculation, I think, for here there is no one but a second-rate fencing master’s assistant, a worn out super from the ‘Gaiety,’ who has managed to get himself appointed fencing master to the Guards on the strength of the mimic battles he organizes at the theatres. You can see him in the Prospect. He teaches his pupils the four cuts. I agreed to take lessons from him, but at the first encounter I perceived that I was master and he the pupil; so I dismissed him for a contemptible fellow, paying him half the fee which I charge for dressing the hair, and the poor devil was only too pleased.”
“Sir,” said I, “I know the man of whom you are speaking. As a stranger and as a Frenchman you ought not to speak like that; for as a stranger you should respect the Emperor’s choice and as a Frenchman you have no business to disparage a fellow-countryman. Now I am giving you a lesson, and I don’t even charge half fees, you see I am generous.”
With these words I rose from the table, for I had already had enough of the French colony and was anxious to depart.
A young man who had not spoken during dinner also got up and left the room with me.
“It appears to me,” said he with a smile, “that a very brief introduction has sufficed you to take stock of our beloved fellow-countrymen.”
“I must indeed confess that they do not meet with my approval.”
“Well,” he replied with a shrug of the shoulders, “it is by such specimens we are judged in St. Petersburg. Other nations send abroad of their best, we generally export our worst; yet all the same we everywhere outweigh their influence. It is very creditable to France, but very unpleasant to Frenchmen.”
“Are you living in St. Petersburg? “I asked.
“Yes, I have been here a year, but I am leaving to-night.”
“Really?”
“I must engage a carriage. I have the honour to...”
“Sir, your most humble...’
“Well! “I pondered, going upstairs again, while my companion made for the door, “I am unlucky, I meet a decent fellow by chance and he is leaving the very day I arrive.”
I found a servant in my room preparing the bed for the siesta. In St. Petersburg as at Madrid it is the custom to take a nap after the midday meal — and very sensibly, for it is hotter in Russia than in Spain for two months of the year.
This rest exactly suited me, bruised as I was by the couple of days’ travelling and yet desirous of enjoying as soon as possible one of those beautiful nights on the Neva which are so greatly extolled. On questioning the servant as to how I could procure a gondola, he replied that it was the simplest thing in the world, as it was only necessary to order it and in consideration of ten roubles, which would include the commission, he would make himself responsible for everything. I had previously exchanged some money for Russian bank-notes and giving him one I told him to wake me up at nine o’clock.
The bank-note produced the desired effect. On the stroke of nine there was a knock at my door and a boatman was waiting for me downstairs.
Night was in reality twilight, so calm and clear that one could easily read by it and distinguish even at a considerable distance buildings lost in a delightful haze and clothed in indistinct colours, as under an Italian sky. The stifling heat of the day had been dissipated by a pleasant breeze from the islands bearing in its train a light perfume of roses and oranges. The city, deserted by day, was now thronged with people who crowded on to the marine parade, while every branch of the Neva conveyed its contingent of the aristocracy. All the gondolas had been moored round an immense barge anchored in front of the Citadel and filled with more than sixty musicians.
Suddenly the most marvellous music that I had ever heard, arose from the river and mounted majestically to the sky. I ordered the boatman to get as near as possible to this gigantic living organ, of which each musician formed a pipe, so to speak; for I recognized the concert of the horns, I had often heard about, where each performer plays one note only, waiting for a given signal and sustaining the note so long as the conductor’s baton is turned in his direction. This novel performance seemed to me perfectly miraculous, I could never have believed that men could be played upon like a piano, and I hardly knew which to admire the more, the patience of the conductor or the skill of the orchestra.
The concert lasted far into the night. I remained rooted to the same spot until two o’clock in the morning, listening and watching, instead of wandering to and fro like everyone else; I almost fancied that the concert was given for my special benefit and scarcely believed that such musical wonders would be displayed on the following nights. I had plenty of opportunities of examining the instruments used by the performers. They are tubes, wide at the end whence the sound proceeds and gradually tapering to the mouthpiece which is bent. These trumpets vary in length from two to thirty feet. Three persons are necessary to play the latter, two to hold the instrument and one to blow.
I returned as day was breaking, utterly astonished with the night I had just passed under this Byzantine sky, in the midst of this Northern music, on this river so wide that it resembles a lake, and so pure that everything is reflected as in a mirror, the stars of heaven and the lights of earth. I confess that at this moment St. Petersburg appeared to me far above everything that I had imagined, and I decided, that if it was not quite paradise, it did not fall far short of it.
I could not rid my head of these Aeolian strains and sleep was impossible. Although I lay down for a few hours I was up again at six o’clock. I arranged some letters of introduction I had brought with me and I intended to deliver them after my first public assault at arms, so as not to be obliged to distribute prospectuses. I took only one with me, as a friend had begged me to deliver it with my own hand. This letter was from his mistress, a poor grisette in the Latin quarter and was addressed to her sister, a humble dressmaker; but it is not my fault if circumstances bring all classes together and if the tide of revolution in our days so often bears the masses into the presence of Royalty.
The address read as follows:
“To Mademoiselle Louise Dupuy, at Madame Xavier’s, dressmaker, Nevski Prospect, near the Armenian Church, in front of the Bazaar.”
You can guess the style of writing and spelling.
I looked forward with pleasure to delivering this letter personally. At eight hundred leagues distance from France, it is always delightful to see a young and pretty Frenchwoman, and I knew that Louise was young and pretty; besides she was well acquainted with St. Petersburg, having lived there for the last four years and might be able to give me some useful hints for my business.
As I could not very well call upon her at seven o’clock in the morning, I decided to take a stroll round the city and return to the Nevski Prospect about five in the afternoon.
I rang the bell; and a valet made his appearance. The valets are both servants and cicerones; they black your boots and show you palaces. I immediately despatched him on the first duty; as for the second, I knew my St. Petersburg as well as he, having made a study of it beforehand.
CHAPTER III
I HAD not taken the trouble to order a I carriage, as I had done in the case of a boat the previous evening; for though I had been in St. Petersburg only a short time, I had not failed to notice the stands for post chaises and droskys at every street corner.
Scarcely had I crossed the Admiralty Square on my way to the Alexander Column, and made a sign that I wanted a carriage, before I found myself surrounded by coachmen, who made the most seductive offers in their eagerness for a customer. As there is no authorised tariff I was anxious to see how far down the scale they would bid; they drew the line at five roubles. For five roubles I engaged the driver of a drosky for the whole day and ordered him to take me to the Crimean Palace.
These drivers or coachmen are as a rule serfs, who, by the agency of certain services, rendered to their masters, have purchased the right to try and make a fortune on their own account in St. Petersburg.
The vehicle they employ in the pursuit of the capricious goddess is a kind of four wheeled sledge fitted with a seat running lengthways instead of across, so that the passengers do not sit as in our tilburies, but astride like the children on their hobby horses in the Champs Elysées. The contrivance is drawn by a horse just as wild and unkempt as his master, who, like him, has left his native steppes to dash up and down, this way and that, about the streets of St. Petersburg. The ivostchik or driver displays quite a paternal affection for his horse and rather than beat him, as is the custom with our cabmen, addresses him in more endearing terms than the Spanish muleteer devotes to his smartest steed. He calls him father, uncle, little pigeon; he improvises songs in his honour and composes both the air and the words and as a recompense for the hard fate he experiences in this world, promises him a future of untold bliss, which would well content the most exacting mortal. Thus the wretched animal, susceptible to flattery or implicitly believing in the fellow’s promises, hammers out its life, hardly ever out of harness and taking a hasty meal at one of the troughs placed in the streets for this purpose. So much for the drosky and its steed.
As for the driver, in one respect he bears a resemblance to the Lazzaroni of Naples. There is no occasion to learn his language to make him understand you, so marvellously can his keen wits fathom your thoughts. He sits on a little perch between his employer and the horse, with his number slung round his neck and hanging between his shoulders, so that the passenger, with the number always in view, can seize it if he has any cause for dissatisfaction.
The number is then forwarded to the Police with a complaint and the coachman is nearly always punished. Though rarely necessary, this precaution is not always without its uses, as you shall see, for the account of a mishap which occurred at Moscow during the winter of 1825 was still circulating through the streets of St. Petersburg.
Madame L., a French lady, happened to be paying a visit at some distance from her home one evening rather late. As she did not wish to return on foot, although her hostess offered her the escort of a servant, a carriage was called. Unfortunately there were only seven droskys in the square; one was brought; she got in, gave her address and started. The sparkling of a gold chain and some diamond earrings caught the attention of the driver, who also noticed that Madame L. was wrapped in a magnificent fur mantle. Profiting by the darkness of the night, the deserted state of the streets and the abstraction of Madame L., who sat enveloped in her mantle to keep out the cold and let the man drive on without noticing the direction in which they were going, he diverged from the proper route and had already got beyond the outskirts of the city, when Madame L. suddenly lifted her cloak and discovered that she was in the country. She instantly calls out, then shouts, but seeing that the driver, far from stopping, only urges on his horse the faster, she catches hold of the plate on which his number was engraved and keeping possession of it threatens to take it next day to the Police Station unless he at once drives her to her house. Whether the coachman had reached the scene of his premeditated plot or whether he feared that Madame L.’s determination would not allow him to accomplish his purpose, he suddenly leaps from his seat and lands on one side of the carriage. Luckily Madame L., who was careful to retain her hold on the incriminating plate, jumps to the other side, and forcing her way through a garden gate, which stood half open in front of her, she bursts into an enclosure full of wooden crosses and at once perceives that she is in a cemetery.
In hot pursuit follows the coachman with renewed ardour; for it is no longer a question of enriching himself by the theft of the furs and the diamonds, it is a matter of life and death. Fortunately Madame L. is a few paces ahead, and the night is dark, so that at a very short distance she is lost to sight. Suddenly the earth gives way beneath the fugitive, she appears to be engulfed, she has fallen into an open grave prepared overnight for a funeral. In a flash she perceives that this grave may be a refuge capable of baffling the pursuit of the assassin, so she utters no sound, not even a murmur. The coachman catches sight of her disappearing like a ghost and rushes past the grave, ever on the pursuit, Madame L. is saved.
For a good part of the night the driver prowled round the cemetery, for he could not dismiss the hope of recovering what is equivalent to his life. At first he tried to frighten her by appalling threats, then he attempted to move her by his supplications, swearing by all the saints that if she would only give him back his tablet, he would drive her to her house without doing her the least injury; but Madame L. was proof against every threat, every blandishment, and remained at the bottom of the pit, silent and motionless, like the corpse whose place she occupied.
The night was now far advanced and the coachman was forced to leave the cemetery and fly. Madame L. remained in her hiding place till daybreak; two hours after she had extricated herself, the tablet was in the hands of the Police, and her tale was told. For three days the criminal found an asylum in the forests surrounding Moscow. At length, overcome by cold and hunger, he sought refuge in a little village, but his number and a description of him had been notified throughout the district; he was recognised, arrested, punished with the knout and banished to the mines.
However, such incidents are rare; the native Russian is naturally well-disposed, and probably there is no capital where crimes, done for gain or vengeance, are rarer than in Saint Petersburg. More than this; although very prone to theft, the mujik has a horror of breaking open anything, and you might, with the utmost confidence, entrust a sealed letter, full of banknotes, to a lacquey or a coachman, even though he knew what it contained, while it would be rash to let a few almost worthless coins lie loose within his reach.
I do not know if my driver was a thief, but to a certainty he was terribly afraid of being robbed, for no sooner had we driven up to the Crimean Palace, than he let me know, that as the Palace had two entrances, he would be much obliged if I would pay him something in advance towards the six roubles, in settlement of the journey we had just accomplished. In Paris I should have reprimanded him for his insolent request; but in St. Petersburg I only laughed, for the same thing had happened to much greater personages than myself, without any offence being taken. As a matter of fact, two months previously, the Emperor Alexander, seeing a shaver imminent, when out for a walk, as his custom was, hailed a drosky in the street and told the man to drive to the Imperial Palace. When alighting he felt in his pocket, and finding he had no money, said to the coachman:
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